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Hon. Tim Bishop, Congressman 1st Congressional District

September 21, 2007 @ 12:00 am EDT


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The Honorable Tim Bishop, Congressman from Long Island’s 1st District, was our speaker this morning. We requested that he speak about energy. In particular we wanted to hear about Congressman Steve Israel’s legislation. We also asked to comment on the conduct of the  occupation of Iraq, and how that is going.
 
Mr Bishop pointed out what, columnist, Tom Freedman stated a while back, United States is funding both sides of this war. We buy oil from a region that supports terrorism, and we suffer the economic costs of fielding our own troops and equipment. That answer actually bridged the two initial focal points we asked about.
 
But sticking to the original question Tim said their was some good news. Where global warming has been questioned in the past, it is now taken for fact. The earth is getting warmer. The fact that we recognize that puts us in the position of doing something about it. Some of the things we should be doing are;
  • Roll back the $16.5 billion in tax breaks given to the oil industry. There is no rational for selecting the industry for tax abatement when they are probably the most profitable sector of the economy.
  • Mandate that utility companies produce at least 15% of their power using non-polluting alternative energy by a date certain.
  • Reconsider properly sited Nuclear Power plants.
  • Pass an alternative energy research and development bill such as the one proposed by Congressman Israel
  • He suggested that bio-fuels can and should be developed, although corn based fuel is less than an optimum use of that product for fuel. He was being kind, but having corn farmers as your constituents could color your opinion.
There are two alternative energy bills that are presently being considered. One in the House and one in the Senate. There is considerable differences and according to Mr. Bishop, they may be difficult to resolve.
 
Turning his attention back to Iraq he told us the United States has invested more than $20 billion in training and equipping the Iraqi security forces, and they have little to show for the effort. The chief of staff, General Petraes boss, General Mullen said we are not going to resolve the Iraqi situation by military means. Tim then gave some statistics on the polling of the Iraqi people. 70% of Iraqi’s think it is OK to attack American soldiers. Congressman Bishop is adamant on our need to redeploy our troops away from the centers of the action. The president is equally adamant about keeping on doing what we are doing.
He then cited the GAO report that bluntly stated that Al Queda has completely reconstituted itself with the net result being interpreted as, we are no more secure now than we were before 9-11.
 
It was suggested that enough criminal behavior has occurred in this White House to warrant impeachment. He rejected that idea on the grounds that it would tie up the country and be seen as a "bloodless coupe" if Bush and Cheney were impeached and convicted. That scenario would leave Speaker Pelosi in the presidency. In other words, it aint gonna’ happen.
Ernie Fazio